Same thing said different ways

Now that Romney’s got the nomination* the serious business of journalists cogitating on an election that won’t happen for another seven months can begin. Since he’s the challenger, much of the talk is of whether Romney’s got what it takes to knock Obama off his perch. Two articles out today get into the personality question, as in: does Romney’s lack of one matter?

Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight blog on the NYT addresses the apparent problem that people see Romney as much less empathetic than Obama. There are two interesting points here: one is that perceptions of personality traits like being empathetic or being a good leader basically break down along party lines. If you’re a Democratic voter, Romney can’t empathise for shit, while if you’re a Republican, his very heart vibrates with your own. The roles are pretty much reversed for Obama, although a slightly higher proportion of Republicans see him as empathetic than of Democrats see Romney as such. This is itself doesn’t negate the importance of empathy and suchlike though, because American elections (much like British ones) are fought over the small number of independent (or “swing”) voters located in battleground states, hence what really matters is what the people in the middle think, rather than those that were going to vote for you anyway. But the second interesting point from the article is that perceptions of candidate empathy pretty much balance out with the rest of their characteristics:

Furthermore, perceptions of candidates’ personalities aren’t necessarily consequential because there are many potential trait dimensions on which voters could evaluate candidates — honesty, leadership, empathy — and across these different dimensions, voters’ assessments may not help any one candidate. A candidate’s empathy advantage could be offset by a leadership disadvantage. Thus, the total effect of these trait perceptions on the election’s outcome would be small. This is exactly what the political scientist Larry Bartels found in a study of the presidential elections from 1980 to 2000.

And the article goes on to conclude with what just about every political scientist will refer to continually between now and the election: what really matters is whether the economic recovery picks up or not.

Which, coincidentally, is basically what this bit from the Economist gets around to saying after its own tour around the houses. It starts with Romney’s woman problem: in short, that they prefer Obama, a lot. There is some discussion of whether various controversies around contraception and abortion are to blame for this hostility, and I can’t quite get to the bottom of what the article is saying there. But what it definitely does produce at the end is a quotation from a novelist, Walter Kirn, who has a political column going at GQ. What I like about this is that GQ and the Economist broadly agree with the conclusion to the NYT piece, but based on dead reckoning rather than a bunch of statistics. From the Economist (with props for the Glengarry Glenross reference):

If he [Romney] manages to close, it will be because he’s persuaded enough of us, man and woman alike, that he’s the abler, uberer mensch.

That, and a slack recovery.

So what I’m getting from this, above all, as the one message the candidates need to hear: “Be competent, dudes. Be competent.”

*I hereby vow that aside from this footnote, there shall be no mention of Newt Gingrich on this blog.

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4 comments

This is all very interesting stuff. One economic factor I’m watching is the price of gasoline. I think if summer gas prices are as high as predicted, if we’re close to $5 on Labor Day, then the president is in serious trouble. If we’re below $4, then he’s going to be very difficult to beat. There’s no causal relationship there – it’s just that gas prices are both a good heuristic and the media echo chamber loves to talk about them. I would add a couple more things:

1. Not sure about the UK, but as I understand things here in the U.S. there are not very many people who genuinely swing vote, e.g. vote for George W. Bush in ’04 and then Barack Obama in ’08. What there are more frequently are those who either show up or don’t depending on how motivated, but always vote the same way when they do.

2. While the personality traits may not be decisive (and this doesn’t contradict anything said), they can’t be dispensed with because, at least in my experience, candidates who run entirely on issues without first telling the voters who they are – well, they always lose. Always.

The price of gas: I’ve noticed candidates trying to rally support based on it, but I’m sceptical that it reflects trends in the overall economy, less still the President’s actual job performance. You may well be right that at least some people will make their voting decisions based on it, but I find that a worrying thing.

Re: turnout vs. swing voters, this is intriguing. I’m aware that there is a segment of the population that describes itself as independent, but I take it that your view is that these voters, rather than switching between the parties, stick with one but only turn out to vote when they feel particularly motivated? It seems plausible, but I’d be surprised if the proportion of the population that occasionally votes one way and occasionally votes the other is truly negligible. Should probably go do some more Nate Silver reading to sort this one out.

You’d be surprised by that? I wouldn’t. That is, I would not be surprised if, and find it quite plausible that, there are large numbers of people who found Obama exciting after not finding Kerry exciting, and thus showed up in ’08 after sitting out ’04. And I find it plausible that there were lots of people excited by GWB who are not excited about Romney. What I don’t find plausible is that there is a significant number of people who voted for Clinton, and then GWB, and then Barack Obama. That seems schizophrenic, so even if there are such folks, they can’t really be persuaded because their voting behavior is irrational.

I don’t mean to suggest that the gas price reflects lots of trends in the economy, but it does indicate two things: 1) if the gas price stays high for long, the prices of everything else will go up; 2) people feel the pinch of high gas prices acutely, and are more likely to act based on a price increase of that product than any other single product, as far as I can tell. Or at least, any product with a regularly volatile price.

I don’t doubt that turnout is very important. But as far as I’m aware, at least in the UK there are genuine swing voters who sometimes vote for one party and sometimes another. And with presidential elections, where the individual candidate’s personality plays a stronger role relative to the party’s overall platform than it does in parliamentary elections, I would have thought there’s a greater excuse for hopping between sides in successive elections. I did a wee bit of reading on Wikipedia about this but haven’t managed to turn up any numbers on actual swing voters in the US, supposing they do exist.